Ask a Policeman

by The Detection Club

  “For forty-eight hours, I understand,” Sir John replied equably.

  “Right out of it l” Littleton went on, without noticing his visitor’s remark. “My own department, mind you, not allowed to do me a ha’porth of good. ‘The Home Secretary takes charge!’ Tchah!”

  There was a long silence. Sir John smoked placidly, supine in a long chair. His eyelids drooped. There were some of his most ardent admirers who declared that never had he appeared to greater advantage than in the part of Sir Percy Blakeney, the immortal Scarlet Pimpernel. It was a nice point. He was permitting his mind to dwell on it when the impetuous Littleton broke out again:

  “of course, any one of us could have done it. That’s as clear as mud. But the devil of it is that only one of us did. You’ve heard the evidence, I suppose? Lovely, isn’t it? The Assistant Commissioner of the C.I.D., the Archbishop of the Midlands, and the Chief Whip of the Central Party, all about equally involved! Oh, we’re sitting pretty, all of us!”

  “’Sweet are the uses of adversity.’ And the weight of the circumstantial evidence goes very slightly against the Archbishop,” murmured Sir John.

  “Oh, you think that, do you?” Littleton sat bolt upright in his chair. “Do you know that the shot went in so clean that it drilled the neatest little hole in Comstock’s head you ever saw? And it wasn’t fired particularly close, you know. There was no powder blackening on the head, and no traces of burning in the neighbourhood of the wound. It was a perfect shot, man! Death instantaneous! Course of the bullet slightly upwards, and all that sort of thing. Are you telling me that an Archbishop fired a shot like that?”

  “Queer, though,” said Sir John, “how nobody seems to have seen Comstock alive after the Archbishop left him.”

  “Queer be damned! The murderer saw him alive! And that gets us back to where we started from! There simply isn’t another bally jumping-off place at all. I’m a policeman; therefore, to most of the bone-heads that make up the great mass of the British public, I’m hardly likely to be a murderer. The Archbishop is a churchman, and murder is a sin. That lets him out. As for Hope-Fairweather, he’ll be lucky if it doesn’t ruin his career, getting mixed up in a business like this. If he’s jugged, I expect he’ll pray to be hanged. Personally, I’d like to pin it on that secretary bird. A nasty growth, that one.”

  “Surely,” Sir John said mildly, “the secretary could have picked a better time. House full of people, all unexpected visitors; a possibility that others might arrive. It isn’t credible.”

  “Well, but, isn’t it?” Major Alan Littleton stood astride the hearthrug, and looked down upon Sir John’s limp elegance reclining in the long and well-sprung chair. “Could he have picked a better time?” he asked. “Damn-all he could! There’s no more evidence against him at this moment than against the three of us! Less, in fact. Each one of us-Pettifer, Hope-Fairweather, and I-has a thundering great hefty motive that sticks out a mile. What motive has Mills? None, so far as anybody knows. If you ask me, that bird’s worked it jolly well if he did commit the murder.”

  “He was under notice of dismissal,” said Sir John. He was not arguing with the vehement Assistant Commissioner so much as letting him talk and listening to what he had to say.

  “Yes,” snorted Major Alan Littleton, “but would Comstock dare to dismiss a man who knew as much as Mills did? Of course he wouldn’t. No, no, Johnny I So far as anybody knows at present Mills had no motive for killing Comstock, and my view is that he took advantage of the presence of all three of us to get away with the murder. He would know we all had a grudge against Comstock, and he would know what the grudge was. He is a clever fellow, used to taking all sorts of risks, I should say, and having to be ready to act on the spur of the moment with nothing but his mother-wit to help him.”

  “You are not suggesting that he arranged the time when you, Hope-Fairweather, and the Archbishop were to visit Hursley Lodge?” inquired Sir John. The Assistant Commissioner reluctantly shook his head.

  “So far as I’m concerned that isn’t so,” he said. “I really did go down on the spur of the moment and without a word to anybody. I had got hold of some information which I hoped would give Comstock the hell of a jerk, and I rushed down to Hursley Lodge to put it across him and call him off his anti-police stunt. Honest, Johnny, what was your opinion of the swine?”

  Sir John rose.

  “‘I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.’” He walked to the door.

  “You’re not going?” Littleton said. Sir John inclined his head.

  “Forty-eight hours. Twenty of them gone,” he said, and made a perfect exit.

  (III)

  “And praise we may afford,

  To any lady that subdues a lord.”

  To say that Canon Pritchard had persuaded his wife to fix the Annual Garden Party for a date when he knew very well he would be attending Convocation would be an overstatement. The fact, as noted by the recording angel, was that after the date of the Annual Garden Party had been fixed, the Vicar discovered that it coincided with Convocation, a discovery which he kept strictly to himself until it was too late to do anything about it.

  He was not sorry to have an excuse for absenting himself from the revels. Attendance at any garden party was not in itself his idea of spending a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, and, even if it had been, he might have been forgiven for considering that a garden party given not for the benefit of the guests but for the benefit of the Church fund hardly came under the heading of an entertainment; for the Vicarage Garden Party held in June was like the Church Bazaar held in November; its raison d’étre, purely and simply, was to rook the wealthiest or most generous of the parishioners-the adjectives were not, of course, synonymous—of the greatest amount of money in the shortest possible time.

  According to Mrs. Pritchard-but it was against the Canon’s better nature to agree with her in the matter the parishioners were exceedingly fortunate in being invited to enjoy themselves in such charming surroundings as those of the garden attached to their vicar’s residence. The garden comprised a lawn, some shrubs, a pond, a paddock, and a small orchard, for the vicarage was situated almost on the outskirts of the sleepy old town. Beyond the orchard was a little stream, and on the other side of the stream flat water-meadows, broken by clumps of willow, led to the railway line whose steep green embankment cut short the view southwards. If enough stall-holders and side-show enthusiasts could be gathered together, it was the custom of Mrs. Pritchard to cause or permit her garden party to overflow into the water-meadows (which were nice and dry in the middle of the summer), by means of a small plank bridge. On this particular occasion-although it made no difference to anybody but Sir John Saumarez—she had arranged to have the greater tea tent there, and also one of the fortune-teller’s booths. There were always two fortune tellers. One read hands and the other the cards. There was also Mrs. Band, who helped in the tea-tent and read tea-cups, but she was never allowed to charge more than twopence, owing to the fact that the tea was made in an urn and so hardly any tea-leaves were available. The Vicar’s wife liked people to have value for their money if it was at all possible. Usually it was not possible, and so her conscience was quite clear.

  The sadness which the Vicar’s absence might have caused in any other year was entirely eclipsed on this occasion by the fact that the famous London actor manager, Sir John Saumarez, and the famous London actress, his wife, had promised to be present; had asked if they might come, in fact; and were actually upon the scene of action just after two o’clock. It seemed as though the fame of the Vicarage Annual Garden Party (tickets of admission one and sixpence before the day, two shillings on the day, right of admission strictly reserved)-had gone abroad even unto the uttermost ends of the earth. The rank and fashion of Winborough—for Winborough society still maintained most of the charming features of Cranford-spent a busy morning discussing what to wear, and a busy noon getting ready to wear it. There was not the slightest doubt in anybody’s mind as to whether i
t was desirable to meet an actor-manager and his wife. Happily, the vexed question of the social significance of stage celebrities has now been settled once and for all, at least as far as the present generation is concerned. To meet Sir John was becoming the life-ambition of all Canon Pritchard’s female parishioners, most of whom spent valuable time in inventing suitable phrases with which to describe the overwhelming occasion to all those of their acquaintance who had not met Sir John, were not likely to meet Sir John, and were going to pass the rest of their lives, if Canon Pritchard’s female parishioners were worth their salt and knew anything about themselves and their friends, in rueing the fact that not to them had been accorded the privilege of having met Sir John, and that therefore they must hide their diminished heads on all social occasions for years to come.

  Sir John himself possessed to perfection the politeness of princes in that, being inwardly bored and irritated, he remained outwardly urbane and charming; and in that, wanting nothing so much as to get away from the great cloud of witnesses who were preparing to go home and brag to their nearest and dearest that they had actually conversed with Sir John, he yet found the exact quip, the perfect repartee, the unerring remark for each. Yet while smiling-eyed, gardenia in button-hole, he gave of his best, all the while he was watching and waiting for one whom he felt certain would appear. His hostess, scattering the throng of young and old maids as though she were shooing poultry, took him apart almost at the beginning of the proceedings, and besought him to sell autographs. She pressed fountain-pen and loose-leaved notebook upon him, set him upon a garden chair, dragged a wicker table towards him, and left him high and dry, like Matthew at the receipt of custom, with strict instructions to get what he could, but on no account to take less than a shilling a time. Sir John permitted his shoulders to indicate that he yielded to the situation. Martella’s grin, as Mrs. Pritchard carried her off to sell button-holes to the male portion of the parish, he ignored; he only hoped she would be able to produce the promised cook at a suitable moment, and that the cook herself might have something helpful to confide to him.

  When his hostess and his wife were out of sight he rose, and with the assistance of a little girl who seemed disposed to spend the entire afternoon in leaning over his shoulder and breathing heavily into his right ear, moved chair and table nearer the garden gate. Fortunately for his purpose, there was only one entrance into the vicarage grounds, and Sir John, salesman of autographs at not less than one shilling a time, was not as tremendously sought after as Sir John, private lion warranted to roar nicely and not to bite, had been; and so, as the crowd melted away, he was able to keep one eye on the autograph hunters and the other on the gate. He worked off a dozen or more autographs, and the little girl, coming, apparently, to the conclusion that the performance, although interesting, was not going to vary, removed herself from his vicinity. So did all the people who either could not or would not afford a shilling, and Sir John, caressing his ear with a silk handkerchief, began to feel that the Vicar’s wife, despite herself, had done him a good turn. The June day was warm. At the back of Sir John’s chair stood a tall tree, young, but clothed with all its dark green summer leaves. Sir John removed his hat and laid it, after a preliminary survey of the surface, on the little table; perceived at a little distance a deck-chair, inviting and untenanted. With a hunted glance, to make certain he was not detected in his lapse from duty, he drew it beneath the shade of the tree and in less than three minutes he was reclining in it with his eyes closed.

  His satellite approached him.

  “Mrs. Pritchard said I was to make all the people come to you and buy an autograph. I don’t think any more want to come. Can I go and play now?”

  “Surely,” breathed Sir John. “An ice? Lemonade?” The maiden accepted half a crown with some alacrity and darted off. In a few moments she was back again.

  “Thanks. Here’s the change. Ice-cream fourpence. It was a brick. Lemonade threepence. I had the homemade. I’d rather have had fizzy, but it was fivepence.”

  She pressed one and elevenpence, all in coppers, into the knight’s reluctant hand.

  “And the pretty one—she’s your wife, isn’t she?—said where do you want the cook put, because she’s found her.”

  Sir John dashed sleep aside, and, incidentally, one and elevenpence in coppers on the ground. They grovelled for them.

  “Finding’s keepings,” Sir John exclaimed, managing to find twopence halfpenny by leaning over the side of the chair. And then, “I’ll come,” he said, preparing to rise from its depths.

  “No. She said not. She said you’re safer where you are…”

  Sir John, chuckling inwardly at Martella’s elliptically expressed warning, relaxed again.

  “I’ll bring the cook. She’s fat. She’ll want a chair. Your wife said she’ll give you a quarter of an hour-and I think that’s all.”

  “It would be,” said Sir John, but he said it to the empty air. He glanced at his watch. Twenty-five minutes to four. Experience told him that the refreshment tent would be comparatively empty for another quarter of an hour at least.

  The cook appeared, a balloon of a woman, short of breath, perspiring, and obviously impressed by Sir John’s sartorial magnificence.

  A nice cup o’ tea? Nothing she couldn’t do with better, thanking you kindly, sir. And she always did say that tea slaked the thirst better’n all these cooling drinks, so-called.

  The big marquee, in charge of one of the daughters Pritchard, was dark and cool. Sir John chose a table, steered his companion to it, called for tea, fruit salad and cream, bread, butter, and cakes, mortified his shrinking interior for the sake of establishing an entente cordiale ; and got his story.

  “We all knowed he was a wrong one. But there! Nothing to do half the year or more, and me with a widowed sister and her two boys. Both at the County School and doing well. It wasn’t for me to say his P’s and Q’s for him. Too old to take any harm, what with not being his style, too, and all. So I stopped. Too quiet for some, but there! I likes a quiet life, I do, having buried two husbands and one at sea.”

  Sir John, also at sea, nodded, afraid to interrupt the flow.

  “So that very morning, funny enough, two magpies flew acrost the kitchen garden. ‘Means something,’ I said to George Briggs, ‘though what,’ I said, ‘who can tell? ‘Anyway, Mr. Farrant orders the lunch, same as usual, and him never to eat again, poor man, which I can’t help but shed a tear,” said the cook, producing, largely for Sir John’s benefit, a black-bordered handkerchief, and wiping her eyes, “wrong one though he was. But there! What are lords for, if not to do the things we’re all too poor to afford?”

  This piece of philosophy appeared to give her considerable food for thought.

  “Farrant ordered the lunch,” Sir John reminded her, after a tactful interval of silence and the shuddering consumption of a small piece of tinned pineapple. Re-called, not so much to the thread of her narrative as to her duties as a guest, the cook scraped up the last vestiges of cream from her plate, stretched forth a beringed hand to the cakes, and then observed:

  “Ah, Mr. Farrant. I never took to that man. Friendly as you please we was, but reely to say trust him, no, that I never couldn’t. But find out things! There’s nothing that man didn’t know. All the ladies, and their names, and where they come from. And that’s not all.

  “’’Is Grace is in there,’ Farrant says to me, ‘going for ’is lordship ’ammer and tongs. You come and listen to ’em,’ he says. So I did, under the stairs, there being a door there from the kitchen, and not having to put the cutlets on for another half an hour, and the vegetables done and covered up against cooking ’em. My word I You should ’ave ’eard it! Not words, mind you, I didn’t hear. At least,” the virtuous woman amended, pursing her lips, “I did hear one or two, from his lordship, has I should be very sorry to repeat, even on oath, which I suppose it’s got to come to.’’

  Sir John inclined his head.

  “One fears so. Yes.�
� He introduced a portion of tinned apricot into his mouth and swallowed it heroically.

  “Have some more cream, sir,” said the cook. “Whole-some cream is, I always say.”

  With inward misgivings and a sigh for the reactions of his waistline to this heresy, Sir John accepted the lavish spoonful which she dolloped on to his plate from her own teaspoon. His smile and his thanks, however, were minted from the finest gold of courtesy. The cook beamed.

  “So you didn’t really hear anything of what was said?” Sir John suggested. The cook bridled.

  “Who said I didn’t? I could have heard plenty, if I’d wished. But ladies don’t wish. Brought there to hear the row I was, and hear the row I did. And awful was his lordship’s fearful words,” said the cook, feeling, apparently, that nothing but blank verse could do justice to the subject of his lordship’s language. ‘Guts of a flea,’ he says. And ‘blasted hypocrisy.’ And ‘whited sepulchres. That’s out of your own book of clap-trap barley sugar,’ he says. And all like that. Abuse. Just vulgar. Though he was a lord, he’d raised hisself from dirt, as well we knew. And dirty does that dirty is,” said the cook, inspired. “No class. That’s what it come to. But the Archbishop, poor old man, I couldn’t hear a word of him except his voice, and then when his lordship knocked his swivel chair over, me hating violence, which my first husband used to throw the flat irons about in his rage—”

  “You think Lord Comstock’s chair was knocked over?”

  “As who shouldn’t? Who done the dusting in that room? Why, me. Can’t you see a butler doing dusting? It was the swivel chair at his lordship’s desk that went over, of that I’m certain.”

  Sir John produced the police plan of Comstock’s study. On it was clearly marked an overturned chair. But it was the chair near the door. He showed it to the cook.

  “That chair may or may not have been overturned when the police turned up,” said she, “but if I was on oath, which surely is what it’s got to come to, the chair I heard crash was his lordship’s swivel chair. A woman gets to know furniture, sir, you know. Besides, the sound wasn’t by the door.”